Fortunately for Ferdinand, who’s a little over a year old (and one of the cutest sheep on the planet), he had a friend in Perry, a University of California Santa Cruz student who rents a room on the farm and has become very attached to the gentle “pear thief supreme.”

Perry was devastated. He’d known Ferdinand since he was born and had spent months socializing and training the handsome sheep to walk on a halter. So, Perry, given just a couple of weeks to find a home for Ferdinand, desperately reached out to everyone he knew—family members, extended family, family friends, and even people on Craigslist—but could not find a home for his sweet friend. That is, until he contacted Farm Sanctuary, America’s leading farm animal protection group. We happily welcomed the master pear thief to our Orland, CA shelter, where he will serve a life sentence of grazing with his herd, basking in the sun, and eating as much fruit as his heart desires.